Jazz at Lincoln Center

Artistic Director Wynton Marsalis hosts this popular weekly music series with the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra.

“We don’t just play jazz—we teach it, we write it, we dance it, we sing it, we present it, we photograph it, we film it, we produce it, we archive it, we record it, we broadcast it, we commission it, we celebrate it, we love it, we share it.”
– Wynton Marsalis, Artistic Director, Jazz at Lincoln Center

Comprised of 15 of the finest jazz soloists and ensemble players, the world-renowned Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra has been JALC’s resident orchestra for more than 10 years.






About the host:
 Wynton Marsalis is an internationally acclaimed musician, composer, bandleader, educator and a leading advocate of American culture. He is the world’s first jazz artist to perform and compose across the full jazz spectrum from its New Orleans roots to bebop to modern jazz. By creating and performing an expansive range of brilliant new music for quartets to big bands, chamber music ensembles to symphony orchestras, tap dance to ballet, Wynton has expanded the vocabulary for jazz and created a vital body of work that places him among the world’s finest musicians and composers.

Program Listings:
May 23, 2013
Prohibition and the Jazz Age
Prohibition was intended to stifle vice - but instead, it nourished clubs run by organized crime and created a hot bed for jazz - where "The parties were bigger…the pace was faster…and the morals were looser" (F. Scott Fitzgerald). Ken burns joins host Wendell Pierce to bring us the sound of the speakeasies. Bix Beiderbecke, Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton and James P. Johnson are on the menu as Doug Wamble and Vince Giordano join the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra. Wendell Pierce hosts.

May 30, 2013
Soul Jazz of the 60s
In the nineteen sixties - as rock music was changing the pop world, saxophonist Cannonball Adderley, pianist Horace Silver and drummer Art Blakey drew bebop, rhythm and blues and gospel into a powerful small-group sound. Alto saxophonist Wess 'Warmdaddy' Anderson and drummer Kenny Washington lead inspired sets in tribute to their soulful predecessors. Wendell Pierce hosts.

June 6, 2013
Gillespie and Puente
The vibrant sound of Latin jazz is rooted in the musical heritage of Dizzy Gillespie and 'The Mambo King' Tito Puente. Bassist Carlos Henriquez leads the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra with conguero Giovanni Hidalgo and drummer Ignacio Berroa. Selections include Manteca, Ran Kan Kan, Oye Como Va and more. Wendell Pierce hosts.

June 13, 2013
God's Trombones
"The trombone comes the closest to the human voice with its bent pitches, scoops and smears, and that very human quality is evident in everything that (James Weldon) Johnson wrote," says Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra trombonist Chris Crenshaw. Crenshaw draws on his gospel roots to connect secular music to poetry in this sprawling suite based on the James Weldon Johnson poem.

June 20, 2013
Monty Alexander: Nat King Cole and Frank Sinatra
At first blush, this Jamaican pianist seems an unlikely leader to honor a "king" and a "chairman of the board." But Monty Alexander discovered jazz at a Nat King Cole concert and played his first New York gig at Sinatra's old haunt called 'Jilly's'. Alexander offers fresh, inventive readings on Sweet Lorraine, Come Fly with Me and more - with vocalists James DeFrances and Allan Harris. Wendell Pierce hosts.